Pochettino has been outspoken of his praise for Dembele ever since he arrived at Tottenham from Fulham in 2012.

It was said the then-Fulham boss Martin Jol was gutted to lose the Belgian star to his former club, and while he didn’t make a huge impact in his first season at Spurs, starting just ten Premier League games due to injury, he soon became one of their most important players.

Pochettino even joked that Tottenham ‘do not exist’ without Dembele and his controlling influence in the middle of the field.

And in March 2017, he said Dembele was up there with the most talented players he has witnessed during his career as a player and coach.

“I always say, ‘Mousa, in my book, you will be one of my genius players that I have been lucky to meet,'” said the Tottenham boss.

“One was Maradona, then Ronaldinho, Okocha and De La Pena.”

Pochettino is a former roommate of Argentina legend Diego Maradona, while he played alongside Ronaldinho and Jay-Jay Okocha at Paris Saint-Germain and coached former Barcelona midfielder Ivan de la Pena at Espanyol.

“He is a genius too, Mousa Dembele,” he continued.

“We always told him, ‘If we had taken you at eighteen or nineteen years old, you would have become one of the best players in the world.’